


Something Wicked This Way Comes

by wannabe_someone



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 1st person omniscient narrator, F/M, Gen, Her name is J. like the initial, Magical Realism, Wellie the Well is an eldritch abomination, that should be a tag, the hivemind made me do it, this was a very fun fic to write i may make it a series, yes the narrator is related to Johnson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wannabe_someone/pseuds/wannabe_someone
Summary: FACT: MOST COLLEGES HAVE MASCOTSFACT: SAMWELL HAS ONE SUCH MASCOTTRUTH: SAMWELL’S MASCOT IS NOT WHAT THEY SEEM.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Author's Note:**

> ayyy i had to learn how to do footnotes all hail this tutorial
> 
> [ the tutorial](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4579026?style=disable&view_full_work=true)
> 
> and this work to learn to embed links
> 
> [ the tutorial](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2425535)

FACT: MOST COLLEGES HAVE MASCOTS

FACT: SAMWELL HAS ONE SUCH MASCOT

TRUTH: SAMWELL’S MASCOT IS NOT WHAT THEY SEEM.

  
  
It started, as many stories do, with a college tour. [1]

I am aware that this is an uncommon setting, but bear with me, dear reader. This will all make sense in time.

Our lovely narrator was on one such tour, and she was unimpressed. As college tours go it was fairly standard, and she had not wanted to waste a lovely afternoon in March getting dragged around another college with her parents.[2]

Let us call this narrator B. Technically, this was not their name, but it will make our lives easier. Unnamed narrators may be fun, but I know very well that it is impossible to gain any attention. We do a great service to the writing, and yet we are never known. I suppose that I should get on with the story, but I really should offer you my petition before we begin.

Ahead of B, the guide was talking about Samwell’s unofficial motto: One in four, maybe more. This piqued B’s interest as she was here, queer, and filled with… existential fear.[3]

The tour guide started to hand out small pies, apparently a county fair winning recipe. B took the offered pie. It had been a while since breakfast, and being anxious always led to extreme hunger. Despite the charm of this college campus, something seemed wrong. They could see it in the way that everyone’s eyes flickered to the chalk markings around every building, the markings that surrounded the quad.

Sadly, B was very perceptive. Not when it came to anything obvious, but small details always stuck in her mind. Looking over at her parents, she saw that they felt the unease.

“What’s going on?” they whispered, nodding at the artist. They had short, dark hair, and were wielding a can of spray paint with expert precision. Another person with long hair and a mustache stood next to them.

B’s father looked serious, a change from how he’d been the entire tour. I knew that her parents had heard the stories. Magic wasn’t dead, per se, but it only existed in small areas. Pockets of land, sometimes hidden from the world.

Occasionally it existed in entire towns.

He bent down to whisper in her ear, eyes darting from person to person. “Magic exists here.”

B let out an excited gasp. All of their life they had wanted to see if they had any innate powers, and if they went to Samwell… suddenly they were excited.

“And?” She looked her parents dead in the eyes and her face fell.

Her mother grabbed her father’s hand and he squeezed it. “There’s a creature that haunts this campus. Wellie the Well.”

The whispering grew louder. Something started to ring, vibrating, traveling through her very bones. The crowd started to panic. The smaller spray painter was lifted onto the larger ones shoulders. “Everybody get behind the lines!”

The tour group started at them, and they stared back, looking both terrified and utterly in charge. “Now!” 

The group ran.

As you already know, our antagonist is called Wellie the Well. The founders of Samwell called it a mascot, bringing it into their city and allowing it to live.

The living part was their first mistake.

Magic takes some time to percolate through beings. Originally, Wellie was just that. A well costume. Through the power of belief…

It spawned in the forest, feeding on small animals. The carcasses were not seen as strange. There were several werewolves on campus, or living in nearby towns. As they got closer to the full moon, they tended to get a bit more wolf-like.  It wasn’t uncommon to see them eating a squirrel or a rabbit.[4]

In short, Samwell University is dominated by a homicidal well. They are still known as Wellie and occasionally invoked as a threat, although that has been classified as a crime by the town of Samwell. Students do often wish to use Wellie as a way to get out of finals or classes. It never ends well for them.  Although there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of skeletons showing up on campus in the last few years.[5]

And now, back to B.

The smaller, terrifying one was talking on the phone, referencing someone named Jack Zimmermann. Even from here, B could hear the voices. The people on the other end were incredibly loud.

The one with the mustache had started to root through a bag, grabbing a large drum and passing it to the terrifying one, who held it like it was a deadly weapon.

“Ok, mothers and fuckers of the jury! Here’s what we’re going to do.” Mustache glanced at the parents who were giving them dirty looks and shrugged. 

“If Wellie comes over here, we’re going to be as loud as we possibly can, try to drive them away. They won’t be able to hurt you, Lards here is fucking awesome at anti-Wellie wards. Just got to be super fucking loud, like you’re yelling over the Lax bros.”

B smiled. They hated most sports bros on principle. And also because they were generally assholes. And for whatever reason, Lax bros annoyed her the most. Some of the crowd were giving Mustache death glares, and B marked them down as people to avoid.

The vibrating ring had come back, louder now. B took a few deep breaths, trying to avoid panicking. Panic wasn’t going to help with the current problem. The ring built more, and B realized that there wasn’t anything that she could do. It felt like the ground was turning to quicksand beneath their feet.

B saw their tour guide run out, carrying a large bag. Even from here, they could smell the meat. A few seconds later, they blurred. There seemed to be a heat trail behind them.

Their group was stuck in the bubble for several more tense minutes, speaking only in whispers.  Most people were on their phones, seemingly unconcerned.[6]

It all ended when the terrifying one took out their phone. “Wellie’s back in the forest. Bitty’ll be back here any second.”

B saw the same blur as before, which resolved into the face of her tour guide. The wards lowered and everyone took a deep breath.

Later that day, she would go up to her parents and break the news that she wanted to apply to Samwell. They just smiled. What college she went to was her decision, even if it was haunted by a homicidal eldritch being.

I am aware that this is an uncommon setting, but bear with me, dear reader. This will all make sense in time.[return to text]

From an objective standpoint, her parents were fairly easygoing, but as they were parents… It is their duty to be seen as an embarrassment by their teenage spawn.[return to text]

I find the idea of mere humans feeling existential fear repulsive. They have no idea of the troubles that I and many other omniscient narrators go through, knowing that our only purpose is to serve a fixed narrative. Thank fuck for the people who update their drabble collections. It allows us to live forever. [return to text]

Werewolves are immune to rabies and all other illnesses. I’m certain that many people are jealous. It also makes them very useful whenever there is a plague, but in this narrative, the year of 2020 turns out significantly better. We’ll see about 2021. [return to text]

Don’t worry, it usually is just an arm or a leg. The students normally survive, even if they are slightly traumatized. [return to text]

The Wellie lockdowns were a lot like lockdown drills. They never got less stressful, but you got used to them, apparently. I am not American, so I have never had to deal with a lockdown drill. I will always hold this fact over John’s head. (Metaphorically, of course.) [return to text]


End file.
